The present invention relates to apparatus for filling cake products or soft baked goods and more particularly to a novel injection head assembly for simultaneously filling such goods with different semi-fluid substances.
Various cake or soft baked goods are presently available which are filled with a cream or the like. Such goods are generally baked in individual pans. The pans are arranged in parallel rows and conveyed to a filler apparatus and injected. The apparatus fills a plurality of cakes with a single semi-fluid substance, such as a cream. Typical cake filler apparatus includes a main frame, a conveyor supporting a plurality of the pans in elongated, tandemly arranged rows, a filler injection head and a lifter frame. The filler injection head is fixed on the main frame. The lifter frame raises the pans and hence the cakes into contact with the injection needles. An example of one such apparatus may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,669,005 entitled CREAM FILLER APPARATUS and issued on June 13, 1972 to Fullerton.
An example of an injection head used in presently existing cream filler apparatus may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,999,691 entitled CAKE FILLER and issued on Dec. 28, 1976 to Doom. As shown therein, the filler includes a manifold assembly having a supply channel or chamber which communicates with a needle plate through a supply valve, a slide gate valve and a gate port. A suck back piston is positioned in a suck back chamber. The suck back piston counteracts the tendency of the fluid substance dispensed by the head to extrude through the dispensing needles and drip or smear on the exterior surface of the baked goods. A plurality of injection needles are supported on the needle plate. The needles communicate with an input aperture through an interconnecting array of branching channels.
Presently existing cake or soft baked goods filling apparatus suffer from several problems or limitations. For example, such are limited to the injection of a single substance. Presently existing equipment cannot produce a cake simultaneously filled with two different substances, such as cream and fruit fillings.